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Topic: Hell Has Finally Frozen Over! (Read 9071 times)

he's cozy with Russia/North Korea!!(again, looking to smooth over relationships that were previously sour! the horrors!).

This one I'll never understand. Both of these are nuclear powers. Nothing good can come from being unnecessarily adversarial.

And as far as NK goes, the best thing we can do for the people of NK is encourage them to open up to both tourism and trade. I don't think Castro would have controlled Cuba for over 50 years if it wasn't for the US embargo. It helped no one but Castro, not the US, not the Cuban people.

And even if you think, as Sanjeev does, that the US needs 800 military bases in more than 70 countries around the world, performing war exercises near NK or China or Russia is just being purposely aggressive. It isn't necessary.

"its hilarious to me how much bitching and moaning there is about anyone looking to shake things up.

Part of it may be resistance to change.BTW, I also see the summit as a potential positive even if the strategy feels awkward but I submit that it's too early to call peace for our time.Have always been fascinated by change and all kinds of restructurings.In my limited experience, the best plans are based on reasonable objectives and fair dealings.

Can you elaborate on the intent and the objectives after things are shaken up?

That is definitely part of it. I also think people who want change, want it all on their terms and when they don't get what they want, have to fabricate stories and use scare tactics to try and reroute things the way they want them to go.

I think largely what's happening is that countries/institutions who have gotten sweetheart deals from the US for decades, don't like being told that they need to start giving a little bit back. It's like the UN for instance, is more or less funded by the US, yet provide very little reciprocation or benefit to the US. China basically gets to play by two sets of rules. Mexico does nothing to enforce borders and even if you look at what's going on in their "nicer" cities, it's an outright disaster. Trump it seems is resetting things and evaluating them based on business principles. Which when it comes to trade, is the right thing to do. If you can't/don't offer me anything that benefits me, why should you benefit? You shouldn't. Thus I use my leverage to readjust the degree to which doing business with you is more favorable to me.

Of course this is a process, and it will take a while. It's just startling how much dunce cap thinking coming from supposedly intelligent people. Not even first level thinking, it's like the type of people that read a headline on the newspaper, or overhear something while in line at the water cooler and then embrace that headline as their truth without any grasp of the finer details and larger implication behind everything present in it's substance. It's as though absolutely anything that occurs, no matter how positive(tax cuts, good economic numbers, improved relations with previous enemies) must be met with blind and largely "first level thinking" criticism just because one is so married to "their side". Rallying cries like "Trump's racist"(more in depth analysis would lead an informed person to the conclusion that the majority of US Presidents were most likely racist and this had little effect on their ability to do a good or bad job), he's a misogynist(again most presidents, let alone many business people, successful or not are. Being a pig, or a shitty person has little correlation to the success in your profession), "he's pissing off our allies!" (It's almost impossible to get anywhere in life without having to at least step on the toes of a few people), he's cozy with Russia/North Korea!!(again, looking to smooth over relationships that were previously sour! the horrors!).

So in relation to this place specifically, one in which I believe has a higher competency than most and as investors we should be trained to be somewhat contrarian and look for off shoots or mispriced or underappreciated angles; things others don't see, in order to succeed. Trump winning the election was so obvious to me and it was probably one of the most "mispriced" events in my lifetime. And yet, you can see it going back in the threads, so many smart people were utterly blinded by this first level mainstream thinking and rooting for "their candidate", that they missed it completely. And then were too busy rooting against the guy who beat their candidate, that they continue to miss out on opportunities that are obvious. And while one of the pillars of investing is learning from your mistakes, these people still seem to be so personally invested in their emotions and biases, that they still can't even turn it around. My inkling is there is quite of bit of under performance here. And its not because of one's political beleifs, but its an offshoot of the fact that when you get too emotionally invested in something, your inability to see opportunities and price the probability of outcomes becomes severely impaired. Its like "OMG Kim Jong Un is going to blow up the world because Trump SAID he would potentially remove military drills/personnel from the area". And that becomes the truth for these people and instead of looking for ways to capitalize on the off shoot outcomes, they just sit there and stew about big, bad ole Trump. Or my favorite, Russia. Russia is a world power. There is massive investment opportunity there if things thaw out a bit. Which appears likely it will under Trump. Very fertile grounds for investment. Nah bro! Evil Russia! Evil Putin, election interference! Collusion! Its all very amusing to me watching people behave like this.

Or to summarize this is a less wordy way, some of the thought process here is symptomatic of cognitive impairments. The same way a guy with a limp indicates a lower body injury. As an investor, your bread and butter is interpreting data and assessing likelihoods to good/bad outcomes. And if one is presented with a complex macro picture with many different scenarios and outcomes, but the majority of which have so far occurred in the same, predictable quadrant(broader market gains from deregulation, buy the dip on foolish media headlines, earnings boost from tax reform, outsized merger arb gains because of unfounded fear of regulatory risk, strengthening USD, etc), and YOUR interpretation of the data is he's racist(irrelevant), he's stupid(clearly he is not, at least in terms of his capacity to get things done), he's being friends with our enemies!(clearly hyperbole), then, oh boy... Focusing on all the wrong things, getting emotional, and extracting useless info from data that has a wealth of useful info... All signs of an impairment/thinking problem/inability to process information in a productive manner.

he's cozy with Russia/North Korea!!(again, looking to smooth over relationships that were previously sour! the horrors!).

This one I'll never understand. Both of these are nuclear powers. Nothing good can come from being unnecessarily adversarial.

Smart to cozy up to dictators, agreed. Worked well for Japan and Italy in the 30s.

So you read not being "unnecessarily adversarial" as "we should join forces with them and try to take over the world"?

Exactly. Typical hyperbole that embodies these simplistic knee jerk responses. I also missed the part where Trump pledged unbridled allegiance to Russia and North Korea over our allies(wait, he did make an insulting comment!) if we even had to take sides... BUT it does fit the big, bad, evil Trump narrative, grouping him with those countries...sooooo

Slippery slope. Although frankly my best guess at Trump's motivation is to do what is best for Trump, not what is best for the USA.

I care less about what motivates someone than that they do the right thing. This is why I prefer capitalism which works even though people are motivated by greed, rather than have socialism which doesn’t work even though people are motivated by what the s good for society.

"Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!"